What's the deal with effects and pedals? (Also: sound in general)

Also, welcome @Sachelis!

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I justified this by not buying the Squier Vintage Modified Jazz (£230) AND the 1 year old Fender Rumble 40 (£130). If my wife asks you, the pedal is essential kit. Right?

Thanks for all the info @howard, I’m so looking forward to having a new toy to go with my new found enjoyment of the bass.

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Slightly convoluted rationalization and post-rationalization are common symptoms of GAS.
(Music and Health Almanac, 1st edition).

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Pretty standard marital skill. :laughing:

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True, @PeteP :smile:

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Yeah we should probably start a new Zoom Effects thread, there’s a lot of little tips and tricks :slight_smile:

done:

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Did exactly that on my Vintage, needed to practice some low so have it tuned to a low B. @bottomfeeder needed a sample of all notes so I re-strung my bass, sadly low A was too low! I did supply with Bb all the way up!

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I just discovered this. Cool video Josh!

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Yeah, some of those Vintage Josh videos are great!

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Anyone have recommendations for clear, modern sounding bass overdrives?

My current bass driver is a BDI-21 and it has a nice, vintage-like warm overdrive, but I am looking for something more modern (clear, tight, cooler, aggressive) sounding. Here’s what I have come to so far:

  • BDI-21/SansAmp BDDI - I love this pedal. It has a nice warm kind of vintage overdriven tone, but requires considerable tweaking to get it to really distort hard, and then it can be noisy. Boosting the bass and treble works but then it is kind of indistinct and farty sounding while distorting. Not the sound I am looking for with this post. Other than that, everyone should try a BDI-21 - huge bargain for some great tone.
  • Ampeg Scrambler - attempts to be very vintage, but not very well in my opinion, and definitely not what I am looking for (at least the version built in to the SCR-DI I owned).
  • Ibanez Bass Tube Screamer - this is likely the best classic sounding overdrive I have heard but not the modern sound I want. If I wanted to do classic rock or '80s metal I would buy this in an instant though. It’s a really versatile bass-oriented version of the TS9.
  • Zoom overdrive models - I loved my Zoom pedals in general but really did not much like the overdrives on them. Just very noisy and not super impressive.
  • Darkglass - All of these - at least the Microtubes X/X7, Alpha Omega, Alpha Omicron, and B3K/B7K - are exactly the sound I am looking for. However they are also really expensive.
  • SourceAudio AfterShock - this one is a digital pedal but all examples I can find actually sound pretty good. It comes preloaded with a Darkglass soundalike (“smoked glass”) which is somewhat close. It’s also editable and highly parametric with lots of downloadable parameter sets. This might be a contender but I am a little leery of digital overdrives.

I guess what I want is other examples and options of a Darkglass-like sound.

Additional data points

  • Fender on-amp analog overdrives - these sound great but are not portable and are not especially modern sounding.
  • EHX Big Muff - sounds deep dirty and awesome but is a fuzz distortion, not a drive, and thus is not capable of subtle overdrive. That said I am never selling mine ever.
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@howard I’m having trouble hearing what the downside is on the AfterShock unless you want a pedal that just does it’s job without all the fiddly bits. For me, the AfterShock is a bit overwhelming but you seem to sift through being faced with a million different options pretty well.

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My only problem with it is this fear caused by the fact that the other digital overdrives I have heard did not impress me. But every sample of it I have heard sounds awesome. Their Darkglass-like sound, while not the same, still is really good in the samples I have found.

If I see a used one I should probably pick it up. I could always sell it.

The thing does look super versatile.

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Oh, that’s right. I forgot that part. Have you tried combining some GK attack with what you have to get the sound you’re looking for?

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I no longer have any modeling pedals.

There’s a few big differences with the modern overdriven sound over the vintage tube overdrives. The vintage drives tend to be very warm sounding, flattening the lows, boosting the mids and the high end. The sound I am looking for has a more booming low end, retains the high end, and flattens or scoops the mids. It sounds clearer and cooler, not a warm fuzzy overdrive like a Tube Screamer.

Some pretty good examples of the sound starting here:

G-K amps do sound great and have a nice clear punchy tone though, yeah.

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Hmm Apparently Nathan Navarro really likes it. That’s him demoing it in the SourceAudio vid, and he does some other videos about it.

It’s a really really versatile pedal which totally appeals to me.

I think I am kind of selling it to myself here :slight_smile:

edit: turns out Navarro worked for SourceAudio :slight_smile:

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maybe you could look to distorsion pedals (and not overdrive) ? those things usually sounds less vintage/natural/warm than overdrives, maybe worth a try

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I was thinking about that too, yeah. But I like the non-distorting drive tone on the Darkglass a lot too.

It sounds like the AfterShock does that pretty well too. Intro riff to this is apparently the darkglass setting with stuff mostly neutral. Of course part of it is also that Warwick - damn :slight_smile:

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Hehe, someone’s coming down with a serious case of GAS… :grin:

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Heh. I love their sound but when I tried one I didn’t like the neck. B string was kind of flubby too. I’ll have to try one again sometime.

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Howard, I own a alpha omega which acts as my pre-amp and distortion pedal. I really like the modern clean and aggressive tone + all the extra EQ options on this thing. The reason I bought this was that I rather have 1 good pedal then 4 subpar pedals (+ I’m a minimalist). The downside is that it has depleted my bank account… so I was quite happy with that BDI-21 tip you gave me since I do like a warm vintage kind of tone as well. :slight_smile:

Before I went with DG I also looked at EBS gear: EBS BASS PEDALS - Overdrive & Distortion - YouTube or the new microbass 3 pre-amp EBS MICROBASS 3 BASS PREAMP - YouTube

And at EarthQuaker pedals which is more my personal taste for distortion Earthquaker Devices Palisades Bass Demo - YouTube

EHX Big Muff is also on my wishlist!

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